Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
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Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
a coffer, a chest
a basket with a handle (from Sahagún, Thelma Sullivan's translation; see below)
Toptli, with petlacalli, i.e. the coffer, the reed chest, is found in the Florentine Codex as a metaphor for the womb, opened to let the baby out. Book 6, chapter 35.
in toptli, in petlaacalli = the chest, the coffer (central Mexico, late sixteenth century)
Toptli, petlacalli. Inin tlatolli itech mitoaya: in aquin uel quipia in ichtacatlatolli, piallatolli = A basket, a coffer. These words were said about someone who could keep a secret, who was close-mouthed. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
The deceased, the progenitors who are now gone, may have left "their thorn, their maguey," which they "planted deep" upon departing. This may bud and blossom -- in the form of a new child -- in the coffere, the reed chest (toptli, petlacalli). (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
mjxpan tlapovi in toptli, petlacalli = Before thee openeth the coffer, the reed chest (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
njcan otocontlapoque in toptli, in petlacalli, ovalqujz, ovalchaiaoac = Here we have opened the coffer, the reed chest. The incomparable hath come forth, hath spread out (central Mexico, sixteenth century)